5 things to watch: Seahawks at Buccaneers

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Running back Marshawn Lynch could help Matt Hasselbeck by getting Seattle’s ground game going this week. (Rod Mar/Seattle Seahawks)

Five things to ponder and argue about with your in-laws while eating Christmas dinner the night before the Seahawks face the Buccaneers.

1. Run. Run. Run.
He didn’t come right out and say it, but Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said he knows what his team has to do to be successful against Tampa Bay this week.

“The coaches have been very specific about how we can win this game and what we want to do, what we can do, what we need to do,” Hasselbeck said. “So it’s all right there. It’s just a matter of doing it.”

One guess as to what that very specific gameplan might be? Pound the ground. Marshawn Lynch and Justin Forsett have a chance to really take some pressure off their struggling quarterback by establishing a legitimate ground game against Tampa Bay, which is 29th in the NFL defending the run this year at 136 yards per game.

Seattle’s rushing offense hasn’t been great, though. They’re 31st in the NFL at 85.2 yards per game (CORRECTED at 4:31 p.m.).

Still, a conservative gameplan would only make sense after Hasselbeck has turned the ball over 13 times in the past four weeks. Seattle coach Pete Carroll has insisted that nothing has changed in terms of their confidence in Hasselbeck, but in terms of simply going out and winning this game, it may be to their advantage to ask Hasselbeck to do as little as possible. Remember, he’s still banged up, and his tendency to get frustrated when they fall behind doesn’t lend itself to good decisions.

Plus, the Bucs are young, coming off a tough loss that all but killed their playoff chances, and may wear down a little earlier in this game if Lynch and Forsett are moving the chains and chewing clock.

2. Will it even matter?
Maybe not. If the Rams beat the 49ers on Sunday morning (the game kicks off at 10 a.m.), Seattle’s game against Tampa will literally have no ramifications on the NFC West playoff race.

Think about that. The Seahawks can actually rest players and take it easy, depending on the outcome of the Rams game, in a Week 16 game during a playoff race in which they are tied. And in this scenario, they’re actually rooting for the team they’re tied with to win.

Must be nice not needing that seventh win.

So would Carroll consider resting his guys, assuming the Rams win?

Uhh, no.

“That’s not going to be any factor,” Carroll said. “It’s not going to be in the mindset. We’re going to go play the game to win the football game. We can’t afford to do anything but that right now. I appreciate you thinking that we could even pull off the throttle a little bit, but I don’t see that. We’re going for it every chance we get.”

Still, it would only be natural for the Seahawks to suffer a letdown if they know that the outcome of their game means literally nothing. That’s something Carroll hopes they can overcome, and admitted that he’d be paying attention to what was going on in the St. Louis game.

But it won’t have a big presence in Seattle’s locker room.

“We’re not going to have it glaring in the locker room or nothing like that,” Carroll said. “We’ll do just like we normally do. That won’t change things. It won’t change. We’ll be so far into it by that time, we’ll be ready to step on the field and go play and that won’t have any factor on it at all. Of course, that has bearing for the next week, but as far as what we’re trying to get done on this Sunday, it doesn’t figure in.”

3. Will Charlie Whitehurst play?
It’s a question worth asking, obviously, and if he does play, it’s probably not good news. Carroll was adamant Monday that he wasn’t going to have a quicker hook on Hasselbeck this week just because of what happened against Atlanta, but he certainly set the precedent in that game that he’ll go with Whitehurst if Hasselbeck is killing them just by being on the field.

He brushed those questions aside, though.

(Photo by Otto Greule Jr./Getty Images)

“I plan to go play the football game to win it and we’ll see what happens,” Carroll said. “I don’t have any thought at all about taking the quarterback out, not at all. We’re going with Matt. Matt’s our guy, and we want him to play really well.”

That may be true. But what happens if Hasselbeck throws an interception on the Seahawks’ first drive? Or the second? Or both? Carroll is obviously banking on the fact that that won’t happen, but it’s certainly worth considering.

4. LeGarrette Blount is really big. And pretty good.
Blount is built in the same mold as Atlanta’s Michael Turner, who the Seahawks had relative success against last week. Blount’s numbers aren’t flashy — he averages 4.7 yards per carry — but he’s the kind of running back who can bang away at a defense until they wear down in the second half, which is when games have really got away from the Seahawks this season.

And just as Seattle could really take control and establish its offensive presence by getting Lynch going, it could give the young Buccaneers increased confidence to get Blount going early. Remember, they suffered a terrible loss against the Lions last week, so for a team that maybe lacks the kind of resiliency that a veteran team might have, it’ll calm them early if Blount gets going.

The Seahawks are obviously without defensive tackle Junior Siavii, meaning they’ll rely more on Kentwan Balmer and Jay Richardson along the defensive front. They managed to contain Turner last week, for the most part, and he has a physical running style similar to Blount’s. It’s on Seattle’s defense to keep Tampa Bay from sustaining drives and scoring points early, because we all know what impact that’s had on Hasselbeck recently.

5. Who has the better Mike Williams?
Statistically, Tampa Bay’s Mike Williams, a rookie out of Syracuse, is having the better year. He leads all NFL rookies with 58 catches for 888 yards. So it’s a good thing for the Seahawks that they have cornerback Marcus Trufant back from some back spasm troubles this week. One of the big plays in last week’s loss to Atlanta was a 24-yard touchdown pass to Michael Jenkins from Matt Ryan near the end of the first half, which was thrown over Kennard Cox, who was filling in for Trufant.

That was a quick illustration of just how important Trufant is to Seattle’s secondary.

“I see a lot of aggressive young receivers that can make a lot of big plays,” Trufant said. “That’s basically what they’ve been doing all year.”

Still, Seattle’s Mike Williams could play a vital role, too. He returned from an ankle injury and played a full game against Atlanta last week, saying he came through it without experiencing too much pain. And it bodes well for the Seahawks that neither Williams, Ben Obomanu or Brandon Stokley made an appearance on the injury report this week.

“If you guys take a look at the health of our football team, this is as healthy as we’ve been in a long time,” Carroll said. “So we’re fortunate in that this late in the year to have our guys available to us.”